Dog Thieves, Nappers and Bunchers

BEWARE! Be on your toes and always keep your dog(s) close and in your sight! We all know that’s not anything real new of course, dog thieves have always been around. But there are very recent news resports of dog thieves, snatchers, dog nappers and bunchers that have recently made the news. They’re always there, of course, but it sure doesn’t hurt to remind you folks out there of the fact that you should always be aware that YOUR dog could be the next target.

I didn’t know what a “buncher” was other than the fact that it couldn’t possibly be a good thing since it was being reported along with dog napping reports. So, I did a little checking. According to a post on dog thieves from the Pedigree Database the description of a “buncher” is:

“Bunchers are individuals or groups who will buy entire litters of puppies, steal dogs, barter or otherwise get them, and then either trade them to brokers or other individuals for profit, or to anywhere they can, such as fighting rings, research laboratories, other brokers or anyone who buys bulk animals for less than stellar purposes. “

I always thought that defined a dog napper, but of course any phrase that describes these despicable people is fine with me. I don’t really care what you call them, I’m just happy to hear that law enforcement agencies are doing something about it. You can stand up and cheer for the law enforcement agencies that have been cracking down on dog thieves! Here’s a few articles of some recent activity:

Police Bust Major Metro Theft Ring which begins by telling folks that “Police in Kansas City, Missouri, say that a major theft ring that stretches all the way from Kansas City to Henry County was busted on Thursday afternoon.” The thieves didn’t stop at personal property …

A Sacramento, CA news report tells of how Manuel Perez was arrested in a sting operation before he could make his threat to murder the Pomeranian he’d stolen if his ransom demand wasn’t met come true.

Channel 11 KTVA television in the New York area reported in February about how Sugar the French Bulldog went missing from the dog park only to find out that Sugar did not just wander off …

All of these stories above, are only from February and March of this year and definitely don’t include every incident reported. These are just the first few reports I found. It’s frightening to know that I could have Googled for hours and never found them all.

This is a video from 2008 about a darling two month old Pomeranian puppy suffering from a respiratory illness was stolen by a teen age girl and her male accomplice from a Rio Rancho Petland pet store. The video and accompanying story explain that without it’s medicine, that sweet little puppy could die.

Until I read this article called “Canine Theft” from Susan at the Care2 web site, I absolutely, very arrogantly and VERY stupidly thought “Not a crook in the world would ever get my Riley!” Of course that would include Nissa because he would protect her like she was his own child. This was enough to wake me up real quick! Many thanks for posting this, Susan! Once you read this, you should realize real quick that no dog is safe from anyone who really wants them. Considering how paranoid I am about things like someone stealing my car or breaking into my house, I can’t believe I was soooooooo dumb to think that my own dogs were safe! I would rather have burglars take every possession I own, beat me to within an inch of my life and burn my house to the ground to hide any evidence than to steal my FurKids!

So folks, take precautions, never think your dog is immune to being stolen. Judging from these stories, no one’s dog is safe.